Published: April 27, 2010

It is hard to believe that a phrase as dry as “epistemic closure” could get anyone excited, but the term has sparked a heated argument among conservatives in recent weeks about their movement’s intellectual health.

David Frum recently criticized “radical voices”

among Republicans and lost a job.

Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

The phrase is being used as shorthand by some prominent conservatives for a kind of closed-mindedness in the movement, a development they see as debasing modern conservatism’s proud intellectual history. First used in this context by Julian Sanchez of the libertarian Cato Institute, the phrase “epistemic closure” has been ricocheting among conservative publications and blogs as a high-toned abbreviation for ideological intolerance and misinformation.

Conservative media, Mr. Sanchez wrote at juliansanchez.com — referring to outlets like Fox News and National Review and to talk-show stars like Rush Limbaugh, Mark R. Levin and Glenn Beck — have “become worryingly untethered from reality as the impetus to satisfy the demand for red meat overtakes any motivation to report accurately.” (Mr. Sanchez said he probably fished “epistemic closure” out of his subconscious from an undergraduate course in philosophy, where it has a technical meaning in the realm of logic.)

As a result, he complained, many conservatives have developed a distorted sense of priorities and a tendency to engage in fantasy, like the belief that President Obama was not born in the United States or that the health care bill proposed establishing “death panels.”

...David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, argued at frumforum.com on Friday that the problem was not media celebrities, but rather conservative intellectuals.
“They’re the ones who are supposed to uphold intellectual standards, to sift actual facts from what you call ‘pretend information,’ ” he wrote, quoting a friend. “Rush Limbaugh isn’t any worse than he was 20 years ago. But 20 years ago, conservatism offered something more than Rush Limbaugh. Since then, the conservative elite has collapsed. Blame them, not talk radio.”

I would argue that the right has become systemically disconnected from fact, that they are unwilling or unable (probably both) to accept facts that don't conform to their alternate reality. The term for that is described as the 'Post Truth Era', with the right supporting 'Post Truth Era politics and ideology.

I would refer readers to Jay Rosen's blog "Press Think", generally, but specifically to his post from July/August of this year, BEFORE the Republican National Convention, with observations that apply equally to House and Senate campaigns, and to state and local conservative campaigns. It is not limited to Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan, and it is not an observation entirely unique to Jay Rosen.

If Mitt Romney were running a “post-truth” campaign, would the political press report it?

No, they would not. This falls under: too big to tell.

...I think there’s evidence that the Romney forces have figured much of this out. And so even though we have a political press that believes itself to be a savvy judge of campaign strategy, here is one that will probably go unnamed and un-described because (…and this may be the cleverest part) a post-truth campaign for president falls into the category of too big to tell.

Meaning: feels too partisan for the officially unaligned. Exposes the press to criticism in too clear a fashion. Messes with the “both sides do it”/we’re impartial narrative that political journalists have mastered: and deeply believe in. Romney will be fact checked, his campaign will push back from time to time, the fact checkers will argue among themselves, and the post-truth premise will sneak into common practice without penalty or recognition, even though there is nothing covert about it.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Orly 'Bat Shit Crazy' 'Birther Queen' Taitz is a licensed lawyer in California who has while not licensed in other jurisdictions, has been permitted to appear on her federal birther wacko law suits.

She has never prevailed. In point of fact, she appears never to have won a single case, including losing a suit defending herself against litigation for dental malpractice - one of those things she does on the side when not selling real estate or running unsuccessfully for public office, or of course, being the queen of the lunatic fringe birthers.

Orly arguably does NOT do a good job at any of her licensed occupations. She has been sanctioned, she has been fined, she has been sued, she has been fired, past clients have complained, colleagues and peers have filed multiple complaints, she has been substantively accused of fraud and deception and misrepresentation by her clients. She trolls for clients at machine gun shoots, trying to persuade other right wingers, especially people in the armed forces, that she is legitimate and that they should let her act as their attorney. She has legally appeared in cases in federal court in states where she is not licensed through a process where courts waive that requirement, granting recognition to licenses or in a few cases other credentials, from another state.

It's a legal process, that happens routinely. Essentially so long as a court opts to accept your legal credentials, you are allowed to appear in that case as an attorney, or as 'of counsel' (or whatever bad imitation of lawyering/dentistry/real estate sales Orly Taitz performs).

Orly is a right wing joke, of the not-funny, not ethical, not successful variety. She rightly (pun intended) embarrasses some conservatives, but she is the heroine of a lot of others, a slight majority in fact.Politico noted in February 2011 that 51% of GOP primary voters believed Obama was foreign-born, and only 28% knew more factually that he was born in the U.S. of A.

A year later,YouGovdid a similar survey, 9 months AFTER President Obama had released his long form birth certificate. The numbers of Republicans who believed Obama was born in the U.S. of A. had gone down.........but then it went back up again, even higher than before, noting:

This trend is again especially pronounced among Republicans – the
percentage of respondents who accept the Birther myth is, if anything,
even higher than it was before Obama released his long-form certificate.

And in May of this year, the Nation in an article "Return of the Birthers" noted that other polls showed a similar trend:

But now the birthers are back. One of their main hubs is World Net
Daily, a popular website on the conspiracy-minded far right. Through WND
Books they have recently published a compendium of discredited and
newly invented birther assertions called Where’s The Birth Certificate: The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President,
by leading birther Jerome Corsi. On May 17 WND reported that Sheriff
Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, who has become
famous for his mistreatment of prisoners and his distaste for
immigrants, is investigating the president’s citizenship but being met
with “stonewalling” from federal authorities. “Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Cold
Case Posse says Selective Service System officials apparently are
trying to dissuade the Arizona investigative team from attempting to
obtain original documentation to determine whether Barack Obama’s draft
registration form is authentic,” wrote WND’s Art Moore.

As I noted back in February, the incidence of Birtherism is especially
pronounced among Republicans. Immediately following the release of the
birth certificate, twice as many Republicans believed Obama was born in
the United States than thought he was not born in the United States.
Today, by contrast, a plurality of Republicans believes that Obama was
not born in the United States.

One could argue that - given the consistent numbers - this represents what is usually characterized as the low-information ideology driven right wing voter. Which ironically, especially given the predominance in southern states among conservatives, is the same region that comprises a higher percentage of that 47% of government dependent income tax shirking red state conservative voters.

In contrast, Elizabeth Warren is a credible leading legal expert, as recognized by peer journals. She has successfully participated in numerous federal cases in conjunction with other attorneys, where she appears to have full permission and recognition of those courts to participate. So far as I can discern, none of her clients, nor the opposition in those cases, have ever complained about her qualifications or credentials or her ethics in participating in those litigations.

But given that the right wingnuts believe birther bullshit, and have continued to promote the legal career of Orly Taitz as if she actually could practice law successfully or ethically, it shouldn't be surprising that people like the right wing gun nut Thomas who commented here recently were unable to produce any evidence other than a right wing ideology driven law professors's claims that Warren has committed some sort of legal and ethical violation in practicing without a law license in Massachusetts.

I would hope that silly accusation would not distract Professor Warren from her senate campaign; but equally, I would hope that the good professor would consider suing the gutless ideologue for slander and libel. While there is much greater latitude in what can be said about a public figure, surely such unprofessional conduct from a member of that same profession should not go unchallenged.

Even the increasingly desperate Scott Brown in his campaign against Warren has not touched that accusation, only doubling down on his claims that Warren is not Native American, and that she has improperly benefited by lying from affirmative action. The latter claim is directly contradicted by ALL of the people responsible for hiring Elizabeth Warren having confirmed that no affirmative action or consideration of minority status or heritage EVER was a factor in any hiring of Elizabeth Warren by any of her employers, nor can I find any indication anywhere that it was a factor for that matter in her acceptance into any academic institution as a student. The chief legal counsel for the body which investigates claims of improper conduct in Massachusetts has repudiated any claims of improper legal practice by Warren as well.

Yet Scott Brown has apparently doubled down on his claims on the basis of Warren's appearance in a second campaign ad. He isn't making any arguments about her policy or other political differences with him -- just blowing for all he's worth on the right wing affirmative action/ minorities are the enemy dog whistle. From a brief survey, even if it were being promoted by surrogates, the unethical unlicensed law practice claims don't appear to have gained any traction in Massachusetts.

I would hope that Elizabeth Warren would consider my suggestion that she seek objective genome testing proof of her ancestry with the assistance of another Harvard Professor, Louis Henry Gates.

The contrast between Warren and Taitz, between eminent law expert and professor and crackpot public joke (except to far right conservatives, which appears to be most of them numerically) is stark. The right will believe any fool who says something vile and not only unsubstantiated, but PROVEN false. This is the epitome of the folly of the right, personified by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, and blindly embraced by stupid birthers and other conservatives.

I have frequently expressed the lack of critical thinking skills and the aversion to facts found on the right. I can't think of any better examples than these to demonstrate that assertion. We have the class and competence of Warren contrasted with the clownish, unethical incompetence of Taitz.

What a shocking difference between who and what the left will support, and who and what the right chooses.

Friday, September 28, 2012

The apparent premise of Scott Brown's campaign is that Elizabeth Warren made up being Native American as PART, not all of her ethnic heritage, to gain some sort of unfair advantage through affirmative action.

He apparently is too weak on any factual issues, so this is his fall-back position.

At no point has Scott Brown actually shown that Elizabeth Warren is NOT part Native American in her heritage or her DNA. His assertion rests on a claim that she doesn't LOOK Native American (or, presumably 'talk Native American'). This is like claiming that someone isn't black enough or doesn't speak ''black enough", or Asian or Latino or whatever group you choose.

We are, nationally, a melting pot of groups of people, and of individuals who have combined from these ethnicities.

The problem of course is that you can't reliably tell anything about someone by just looking at them or listening to their speech. This is an issue of the failure of Scott Brown because he relies on superficial characteristics and stereotypes.

Here is a photo of Bill John Baker, Chief of the Cherokee Nation, which is arguably as authentically and verifiably Cherokee / Native American as one can get. Does he 'look Indian' enough to you to be obvious at a glance what HIS ethnicity or genetic heritage is? Does he look MORE genuinely Native American than say........... Elizabeth Warren?

Chief Bill John Baker is 1/32 Cherokee; he was born in Cherokee County, Oklahoma where many people are of mixed ethnicity - as is Elizabeth Warren.

This is a photo of Elizabeth Warren. Would you say she LOOKS as Native American as Bill John Baker? Or are the only LEGITIMATE Native Americans (like 'Legitimate' rape) have to look like an historic stereotype to be valid and genuine.

Bill John Baker's predecessor as Chief of the Cherokee nation was Chad Smith. Here's what Chad Smith looks like. Smith was voted out, and Baker was voted in, in part over a scandal involving Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and in part over the issue of the inclusion of Cherokee Freedman in the Cherokee nation.The Cherokee Freedmen controversydates back to the support of the Union side of the Civil War and a Cherokee Nation abolition of slavery act in 1863, in support of the emancipation of black slaves under Lincoln. So, in some interesting, if tangential ways, race figures into this issue along with our NATIONAL heritage, and with more recent right wing political corruption and dirty dealing.

There is something profoundly wrong in trying to make another person feel bad about who he or she is, to make them feel ashamed of their heritage by demeaning it, or them. There is something very wrong about demeaning an entire group of people.

The Senate staffers of Scott Brown have behaved in a racist, bigoted, insulting manner.

Why are they still employed by Scott Brown in his Senate Office at tax payer's expense, representing the state and people of Massachusetts? Scott Brown is losing, and even prominent Republicans in Massachusetts think this is turning his campaign into a circus, when he should be focusing on substantive issues rather than this insulting farce.

For that matter - why is Scott Brown still representing anyone but himself? Come November, it is looking like Scott Brown AND his staffers will be out on his lily white behind - not that the color of his tush matters, only that he is gone. Scott Brown got into office because he ran a much better and more substantive campaign than his opposition last time; he is not doing so this time, not with this tactic. This tactic suggests Brown doesn't understand being American, part of a melting pot of people, of 'e pluribus unum', out of many, one.

I have no sympathy for the Egyptian Coptic extremist who tried to incite people to riot, especially against the United States and Israeli diplomatic missions in predominantly Muslim countries.

This man is directly responsible for people dying, possibly not those who died in the Libyan attacks, except indirectly where the demonstrations created confusion that served as cover for terrorist attacks.

But other people have died as a result of these people who were outraged by someone attempting to do everything possible to trigger a reaction from people who were already in fairly desperate straits from the years of corruption and brutish abuse and oppression from Mubarek and other dictators.

LOS ANGELES -- Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the Cerritos man who many believe to be behind an anti-Muslim video that has inflamed the Islamic world, was arrested Thursday afternoon, the U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles said.

Nakoula faced a 3 p.m. hearing Thursday on charges that he violated the terms of his parole, U.S. Attorney spokesman Thom Mrozek told NBC4 News. The arrest was sought by officials of the United States Probation Office, he said.
Nakoula was indicted for check fraud in 2009 and then convicted. As a condition of his probation, he was forbidden to post information on the Internet without permission from his parole officer.
MORE: Film Will Stay Up, Judge Says | Actors Plan to Sue Filmmaker | Coptic Leaders Denounce Film
He is believed to be the producer of the film, "Innocence of Muslims," which depicted the Prophet Mohammed as a pedophile.
A self-described Coptic Christian who was born in Egypt, Nakoula is said to go by the pseudonym Sam Bassiel. That moniker that caused widespread confusion when the film was first released earlier this month when someone associated with the film said that the producer was an Israeli Jew with that name.
Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com
Others have disputed that the video was the cause of the violence in Libya. On Wednesday, Libyan President Mohammed Magarief said that the attacks on the U.S. Consulate there were carefully planned terrorist events, not the actions of a mob angry about the video.
Suspected anti-Islam filmmaker questioned
The amateurish film, which was distributed online, prompted riots throughout the Middle East, and was cited as a cause for the violence that led to the deaths of U.S. diplomats and others in Libya. Among those killed were U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others.

The following is an exceptional article from the BBC News service on jobs coming back from China to the state of New Hampshire, which has lost the most jobs per capita of any state in the country.

It is clearly, from this article and from the opinion of many economists, NOT NOT NOT tax breaks that bring back jobs or keep jobs here, or lead to any decision to start or expand a business for that matter. The Grover Norquist political insanity is a total myth, fantasy, right wing wet dream piece of nonsense and misdirection. It is the irrational ideology rather than science that has so effectively contributed to the chasm between the 1% and the 99%.

It's a long article (like the posts I tend to write) because it doesn't try to reduce a complex topic to a stupid over-simplified sound-byte or the equivalent.

But there was one quote that deserves attention as highly significant.

US election: How can politicians bring back jobs from China?

By Jason MargolisPRI's The World, New Hampshire
Presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney pledge to create
jobs, and that will involve bringing home manufacturing jobs from China.
But do politicians even offer American businesses what they need to
bring jobs back?

Though politicians may be quick to take credit for bringing
manufacturing jobs back from China, "it's all baloney", says Richard
D'Aveni, professor of strategy at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of
Business.US 'disadvantage'
That's not to say that government shouldn't try to help businesses compete with China.

Most of Hypertherm's employees work in New Hampshire

The US is fighting and losing a new economic Cold War with China, he says, in part because the country has failed to adapt."Our form of capitalism is at a disadvantage compared to state capitalism," says Mr D'Aveni.

"If you look at the manufacturing jobs that have been lost, in a very
real sense those jobs have gone and probably will never come back," he
says.
"They've gone to China or to Mexico, or to other countries with lower labour costs or lower natural resource costs.
"But in part, they've been replaced by automation, by technological change."
Tax breaks and subsidy programmes can create a short-term
boost, he says. But to promote long-term economic growth, policymakers
need to focus on educating the workforce.
"Where New Hampshire competes is in producing high
value-added products that require a significantly trained workforce," he
says.
"And that's a very difficult combination for other countries to be able to match."

He compares his firm to successful German manufacturers who have
invested locally and for the long term rather than chase short-term
profits.Hypertherm has spent a couple of million dollars on a
training institute to ensure a steady stream of skilled machinists. The
states of Vermont and New Hampshire and the federal government in
Washington helped.That is the type of government support many in the state call
for. The presidential candidates do address workforce training in their
platforms, but most of their economic arguments focus on taxes.Mr Romney promises lower business taxes, while Mr Obama says he'll end tax breaks for companies that outsource American jobs.I asked Evan Smith at Hypertherm how much he considers taxes when deciding where to manufacture. "I can't think of a single strategy meeting that we've had where that's come up," he says.

Which makes the Romney goal and the goal of other conservatives so dangerously catastrophic in privatizing education for the goal of profit more than education. For example charter schools are often for profit entities, which while a few succeed, overall fail at twice the rate of regular public schools (worse in some states). You canread the study here.

We need solutions that work that are fact driven, not solutions that are ideology driven.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Chip Cravaack is a former Navy Academy graduate and pilot; he knows that this goes on in our armed services.

Chip Cravaack has expended a lot of energy, pandering to his tea party base, giving at least lip service to reinstating Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Gays in the military aren't a problem; every modern developed country EXCEPT ours has had gays and lesbians serving openly without it being disruptive to good order and morale. Cravaack is just pandering to the same right wing backward homophobes that Bachmann trolls for donations, by offering up stupidity on a stick like criminalizing dressing 'too gay' instead of addressing serious crimes against women like rape. We need real police, civil and military, for real sexual crimes, not fashion police. While the criminalizing gay clothing article is satire, it underlines the reality of the failed priorities of the right that caters to homophobes while ignoring real problems.

Reinstating Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a plank in the GOP party platform; that Cravaack still supports doing so, is more evidence that the right is concerned with being 'anti' - anti- women, anti- LGBT, and apparently pro-rape, including in the military where violence against those serving in the armed forces is a problem involving predominantly heterosexual soldiers.

However other similarly developed countries do NOT have our 'culture' of rape tolerance in their military. Lets be clear - this is NOT ONLY a problem for women. Men are harassed and threatened and raped as well, in our military, and would be helped by the STOP Act. According toCatholic Online.org, a source Chip should recognize and respect, but appears to ignore:

A growing number of advocates are claiming that sexual assault and rape
are widespread in the military. At least 200,000 women currently serve
with the US military on active duty. However, it is shortsighted to
assume that only women are affected. According to other statistics, at
least 27 percent of men serving in the military are estimated to have
suffered what psychologists call "military sexual trauma" which is
either sexual assault, or repeated harassment and threatened assault.

So WHY is it that Chip Cravaack doesn't support the STOP ACT, which would address the problems of military rape? Unlike our Republicans from Minnesota in Congress, apparently Amy Klobuchar is aware of the problemand doing something about it; and Al Franken has acted to defend women against rape as well. What is the right wing's problem -- and why does Chip Cravaack fall into line like a mindless robot, incapable of independent thinking or action, with every anti-woman position the right takes? The Right is - effectively - PRO-rape, and anti-women.

Chip has signed on as a cosponsor and voted for MULTIPLE legislative bills that have tried to redefine rape as only the most violent. That would redefine statutory rape of young girls as NOT rape, that would define rape where a woman is rendered unconscious by date rape drugs like 'rufies', or slipped some other form of 'Mickey', or simply gotten drunk to the point of unconsciousness or inability to consent or resist, as NOT raped. It would make it nearly impossible for a woman who had her life threatened or was otherwise viciously coerced to claim rape, if she wasn't battered bruised and bloody.
This is misogynistic culture war on women. This is utterly failing to represent the interests of more than half of his constituency who are women. This is totally, utterly, egregiously unacceptable.
We need to vote Chip Cravaack out, we need to vote out every single Republican and Tea Partier who is waging war on women. They are aiding and abetting the rapists, and revictimizing the women who have suffered from this crime.

Chip Cravaack needs to go; all of the Republicans in Congress from Minnesota NEED TO GO AWAY. They have chosen to be part of the problems, not the solution.

While trying to get his Mitts on R-money, the GOP candidate clearly believes he and his 1% crony capitalists are somehow the real victims, of the 99%, especially the lower economic bracket he characterized as the 47% (along with Ryan and Chip Cravaack). Mittens needs to be sat down hard, by these nuns and to have his warped right wing 'thinking' straightened out. It doesn't matter what religion someone is; nuns are formidable -- and the pope would be wise to remember that too.

It's time for the right to pull their collective heads out of wherever they've been stuck, and to return to objective reality from their revisionist ideologocial delusions. "Out of touch" is a gross understatement.

The leader of the Nuns On A Bus tour that has criss-crossed the nation highlighting the effect the House Republican budget would have on low-income Americans said Monday that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s recent comments about the “47 percent” “show that he is “out of touch” and “has no idea how hard it is at the margins of our society.”
ThinkProgress spoke to Sister Simone Campbell, the executive director of NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby, in New York, where the Nuns got off the bus and onto the Staten Island ferry to highlight the GOP budget’s impacts on poverty programs in New York City. Aboard the ferry, Campbell said Romney’s comments “broke my heart” because they demonstrated his lack of knowledge about the living conditions of America’s poorest citizens:

CAMPBELL: I mean, it was shocking to me that a person who says he wants to be the leader of our nation believes that 47 percent of our country is basically lazy or dependent or indolent. That was shocking to me. But then, it broke my heart that he would be so out of touch, that he would so not know the truth of folks at the margins of our society who work so hard. And he obviously doesn’t know that if you work a minimum wage job, if you’re a child care, if you’re providing janitorial services, or if you’re a day laborer, if you work for minimum wage, you’re still in poverty. He has no idea how hard it is at the margins of our society.

The Nuns tour, which hit nine states earlier this year, was in New York to protest the House GOP budget authored by Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan. Even before he chose Ryan as his running mate, Romney supported the Ryan budget, which makes a majority of its spending cuts from programs that benefit the poor, including food stamps, Medicaid, and other assistance programs.
The Nuns On A Bus tour invited Romney and Ryan to join them during a stop in Ohio early in October but have yet to get an answer. But that visit, Campbell said, might be exactly what Romney needs. “That’s why we’ve invited them to come October 10 to Cincinnati, to have him listen to folks experience,” Campbell said. “Not speak, we want him to listen, to let his heart be broken by the truth of people in the U.S. That’s what he needs.”

Clearly morality is not a factor in accepting right wing money. Karl Rove only objected to the reaction to Todd Akin because of the reaction to him, but not to what he said.

Why do I say that? Here's why there is a culture war from the right on women, including where rape is concerned. It is clear in the redefinition of rape by Ryan (and Chip Cravaack, and every other member of the GOP in the House from Minnesota) and the failure of those same Republicans to vote to support the Violence Against Women Act, or the Stop Act that would address the frequency of rape in the U.S. military.

If the right really cared a damn about women, they wouldn't take money from this angry old white extreme misogynist:
(news from think progress)

Karl Rove’s American Crossroads super PAC reported Thursday that it raised over $9.4 million in August — $1 million of which came from Clayton Williams Energy Inc. in Midland, Texas. That company’s chairman of the board, president, and chief executive officer is, unsurprisingly, Clayton Williams, Jr. Williams was the Texas Republican gubernatorial nominee who lost his 1990 race to then-State Treasurer Ann Richards (D) after making infamous comments defending rape.At a cattle roundup on his Texas ranch, the oil and gas tycoon told ranch hands, campaign workers, and reporters that bad weather was like rape. “If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.” His double-digit lead in the polls evaporated and he lost the election.
The contribution is indeed ironic, as Karl Rove has been among the most vocal critics of Senate nominee Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) after his August comments that victims of “legitimate rape” are unlikely to become pregnant.
American Crossroads and its affiliated secret-money Crossroads GPScancelled all independent expenditures in Missouri after Akin’s comments — after having invested at least tens of thousands into the race.
Later, Rove had to apologize after joking “We should sink Todd Akin. If he’s found mysteriously murdered, don’t look for my whereabouts!”
While Rove and Crossroads seem to want nothing to do with Akin and his comments, it is telling that they are willing to accept a massive sum of money from a man whose only rape comments were arguably even more offensive

The right wing nuts, including the fringie white supremacists they include and embrace, have some funny (funny strange, not ha ha funny) notions about race and ethnicity that are out of date and scientifically bad and wrong.

But what those notions really amount to is more dog whistling of the 'us versus them' divisive variety, the 'you people', 'those people' and 'them' variety. Previously epitomized as the view of white 'country club republicans' (which included my family and upbringing) and commonly found in southern conservative 'white trash' in only slightly different variation, it has now become even more pervasive with the advent of the bigots and racists in the Tea Party.

The Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation on Wednesday released a statement condemning the employees of Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) after a video surfaced of three campaign staffers mocking Brown’s opponent’s Native American heritage.
“The conduct of these individuals goes far beyond what is appropriate and proper in political discourse,” said Chief Bill John Baker in his statement, “The use of stereotypical ‘war whoop chants’ and ‘tomahawk chops’ are offensive and downright racist.”
Baker called on Brown to “apologize for the offensive actions of his staff and their uneducated, unenlightened and racist portrayal of native peoples,” and said, “A campaign that would allow and condone such offensive and racist behavior must be called to task for their actions.”
Warren’s Cherokee and Delaware Native American ancestry has been a frequent line of attack for Brown, with the campaign even running ads on the topic. The Senator did say Tuesday, however, that he did not “condone” their actions.

Too little, too late; those staffers should be fired, and Brown should apologize - a real apology, not one of the non-apology apologies.

That conservatives live in an us vs them world is not just my observation as a former insider now viewing this from the outside looking in. It is the view of people on the inside of the GOP and Tea Party as well.

Former Republican National Committee head Michael Steele claimed Tuesday night that the GOP is ignoring minority voters. Outreach to minorities is "not part of the mainstay of the party," Steele said, speaking on Hardball. "That's the one area were I do have a great deal of concern."

Steele agreed that Republicans are not making an effort to woo minority voters in urban centers and that they are not going to African-American and other minority communities to make inroads. "They're not," he said. "And that's the problem."

It didn't mark the first time that Steele has criticized his own party for excluding non-whites from its coalition. When he was RNC chairman, he said that African-Americans had no reason to vote for Republicans. "For the last 40-plus years we had a 'Southern Strategy' that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South," Steele said in 2010.

This guy is right; the GOP and especially the rabid ignornt tea party, is alienating women as well as people of color. More than that, by going to far right, by purging moderates and embracing extremists, and by waging culture war on women - and it is real - the right is even alienating a lot of white men across a range of ages. That includes many of our commenters here on Penigma, who were at one time conservatives. We didn't leave the party; the party left us - left us as it became extremist and more racist, left us as it became more misogynist, left us as it detached from fact, objective reality, valid science, economics and turned away from knowledge and education.

I don't think Massachusetts has enough angry ignorant bigoted old white men to elect Scott Brown; unfortunately for him, he and his staff are offending everyone else.

Todd Akin, he's stayin' in --- and the GOP is lining up to support his sorry ass (which, with Akin could be either end or both).

The date has come and gone to get his name off the ballot. Akin is blamed by a number of Republicans for 'tainting the brand'. Yeah, because that is the worst thing he did, right? (Wrong.)

Akin represents the worst aspects of Republican anti-science ignorance. To properly acknowledge that ignorance with the treatment it deserves, here are a few of the better responses to Akin's original statement and his subsequent non-apology. You have to love a group that picks the name renegade grannies. Go Granny Go! Sing it! Sing it LOUD! Play it when you vote, and sing along!

I laughed so loudly at the renegade grannies that the dogs came charging in to see what happened, quite concerned, with much barking and leaping about. So I played it again -- a few more times. I hope you share it until it is positively viral.
Then we have the sweetly sarcastic, followed by the fisking fact check - enjoy those too.

Todd Akin hasn't improved with time, and it hasn't been that long since his massively offensive fact-failed statements about rape -- statements which were reiterated by Republicans at the Republican National Convention, where hypocrisy and taking away liberty permeates every inch of every plank of their platform.

Legitimate Rape Is Back

When Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) made his infamous observation that “legitimate rape” rarely produces pregnancy because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” his fellow Republicans couldn’t run away fast enough. One after another they denounced Akin — despite the fact that many of them shared his sentiments on the issue if not his extremely poor choice of words. In fact, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan even teamed up with Akin and other House Republicans in an ill-fated effort to redefine rape. Ryan also worked with Akin on a “personhood” measure that would outlaw abortion in all circumstances and ban common forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization.

The most immediate impact of the Republican effort to distance themselves from Akin (and to try to force him to quit the race) came in the form of declarations from GOP outside spending groups that they would abandon Akin’s campaign and pull their money out of Missouri. For the most part, these groups have kept their word and Sen. Claire McCaskill has surged ahead in the polls.

Now things have changed.

Yesterday was the last day that Akin could pull out of the race and, as promised, he did not do so. So with their chances of taking the Senate looking more and more unlikely by the day, it appears Republicans don’t think Akin and his outrageously offensive comments are so bad after all.

“There is no question that for Missourians who believe we need to stop the reckless Washington spending, rein-in the role of government in people’s lives, and finally focus on growing jobs in this country, that Todd Akin is a far more preferable candidate than liberal Sen. Claire McCaskill,” NRSC executive director Rob Jesmer said. “As with every Republican Senate candidate, we hope Todd Akin wins in November, and we will continue to monitor this race closely in the days ahead.”

Congressman Akin and I don’t agree on everything, but he and I agree the Senate majority must change. From Governor Romney to the county courthouse, I’ll be working for the Republican ticket in Missouri, and that includes Todd Akin.

BOTTOM LINE: The GOP’s apparent re-embrace of Todd Akin tells us what we knew all along: Republicans didn’t really object to Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape,” they just found them to be politically inconvenient. Despite their initial attempt to distance themselves from Akin, it appears that Republicans are going to have to take responsibility for his outrageous comments about women and their bodies.

To borrow a phrase from the 1970's entertainment industry,used in the opening titles of the Six Million Dollar Man and the spin off, the Bionic Woan - "We have the technology..." would seem to apply here, and a leading expert in that technology is close to hand. Although to be fair, it is perhaps unfairly short notice, especially for the geneology part, to hope Professor Gates could have definitive answers available before the November elections. But the question having been raised, additional information would be something that everyone would find informative, most of all presumably Professor Warren and her own family.

Unless and until such research is undertaken by Professor Gates and Professor Warren, it is clear however that the claims made by Senator Brown that Professor Warren relied on some sort of preferential treatment because of her ethnic or racial heritage is already established to be a factually inaccurate attack on Elizabeth Warren.

I do find it hilarious in this article that Brown makes references to the desirability of transparency, including regarding taxes, given that former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney has amended his to qualify to run for governor, and has been so unforthcoming regarding his taxes.

Elizabeth Warren's Native American ancestry claims under fire in US Senate race

Published: Tuesday, May 01, 2012, 4:00 AM

By STEVE LeBLANC, Associated Press
BOSTON (AP) — The U.S. Senate campaign pitting Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown and likely Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren has taken an unexpected turn by delving into whether Warren has claimed Native American heritage in her academic career.
Warren, who grew up in Oklahoma, said she's proud of her family ties to Cherokee and Delaware tribes — a heritage she said she learned through stories passed down to her from older family members.
At the same time, Warren has said she wasn't aware officials at Harvard Law School had promoted her as a Native American faculty member in the 1990s, even though academic directories from 1986-1995 indicated Warren had identified herself as a "minority law teacher" before being hired by Harvard.
Warren hasn't talked about her Native American heritage on the campaign trail up until now.
Warren's campaign has yet to produce any documentation of her Native American ties, although they say they are looking. Warren also told reporters that she couldn't recall using her heritage to claim a minority status when seeking a job.
Brown's campaign manager, Jim Barnett, said the story "raises serious questions about Elizabeth Warren's credibility."
"Prof. Warren needs to come clean about her motivations for making these claims and explain the contradictions between her rhetoric and the record," Barnett said.
Warren's campaign accused Brown of using smears to call into question "the qualifications and ability of a woman."
"If Scott Brown has questions about Elizabeth Warren's well-known qualifications ... he ought to ask them directly instead of hiding behind the nasty insinuations of his campaign and trying to score political points," said Warren's campaign manager, Mindy Myers.
Brown, speaking briefly to reporters on Monday, and said it's up to Warren to answer questions raised by the media.
"If there are questions, she should answer them just like we've been asking and answering questions about our taxes," he said, referring to the candidates' recent release of their income tax returns. "If you're in this position and you're asked to be transparent, then you should do so."The professor who recruited Warren to Harvard said that any suggestion that she got her job in part because of a claim of minority status is wrong."That's totally stupid, ignorant, uninformed and simply wrong," Harvard Law School professor Charles Fried said Monday. "I presented her case to the faculty. I did not mention her Native American connection because I did not know about it."

Romney and Ryan don't want to be President and Vice President off the "47%". They want to exploit that 47% for the benefit of the 1% who feel victimized by the lower 99% despite unprecedented wage and income and wealth disparities in their favor that grew exponentially under the last Republican administration with the help of Republican control of Congress.

Romney and Ryan and the Republican 'down ballot' candidates running for Congress want to repeat every mistake that was made, and enlarge on those mistakes. They admit they are repeating those policies, without change or improvements. This is true for domestic policies, this is true for foreign policies; both foreign and domestic policies were disastrous failures under Dubya.

If you disliked what Dubya did, then you dislike what Romney plans to do. Dubya is regarded as one of the all time worst presidents in U.S. history. There is no wisdom in repeating those policies.

HERE is what the leadership of Mitt Romney actually did; HERE is why Mitt Romney is NOT running on his record as governor of Massachusetts, which is MORE of an indicator of what he would do as President than his role in the Olympics, which only succeeded because of increased funding by the government, or his role as founder and head of Bain capital. This shows what Romney does after what he says he will do when elected.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The same concerns over allowing people who are same-sex oriented to serve mirrors the issue of women serving in our armed forces. The issue is, who does one blame when someone behaves badly.

Do you blame the victims, or do you hold anyone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, accountable for their actions? Do you require culture of responsible behavior, or do you tolerate a culture of sexual misconduct?

Jon Stewart got to the point last February, commenting on another Fox News Culture War on Women incident. Seriously, the right wing extremists keep trying to deny there is a war on women, but THIS makes sense to them. Boys will be boys........????????????????????????????????

No.
Wrong.
Bad.

If the culture of our military needs to be changed, then CHANGE IT. Don't exclude women, don't exclude gays. Our military has been reduced to accepting convicted felons. We have separated people in key security skills, notably Arabic language translators, because they were gay, when our national security depended on those skills. Gee........do you think accepting criminals might be part of our problem with conduct in the military generally, as well as our problem with rape of women personnel or sexual harassment of women personnel in a way that allowing gays to serve would not be a problem?

In his 47% comments, Mitt Romney tried to blow the dog whistle claiming that he and other rich white people are the victims of minorities who don't pay income taxes.

Never mind that the history of the 16th Amendment shows that income tax has always been intended for upper income brackets, and NOT for lower income brackets, dating all the way back to the founding fathers who made income taxation apply ONLY to the upper 10% of the wealthiest first Americans. Never mind that Lincoln and the civil war era Republicans did the same thing.

Anyone who posits that people who don't pay income taxes doesn't pay taxes at all is profoundly ignorant. Mitts on R-money was just annoyed that he couldn't bribe the lower 47% with tax cuts the way he was bribing the upper income brackets; so he played on their innate sense of being victimized by poorer people and the middle class.

Only very stupid conservatives in that lower 99% will believe that people who don't pay income tax are free loading. Only very ignorant conservatives will buy into the idea that not paying income tax, or the government safety net, exists because less affluent people have been bribed by Democrats with government assistance or services.

The reality is that 40 to 60% of the people in those income brackets are comprised by conservatives -- even more in the reddest states in the deep south. The reality is that those benefits do NOT buy votes (that is a predominantly conservative behavior, notably special interest groups like ALEC buying Conservatives elected to office) and do not have the monolithic political will or unity to affect safety net spending or legislation. It would be better if they did, but they don't.

Then we have Senator Scott Brown banging on and on that Elizabeth Warren has only succeeded through affirmative action in her academic career -- and then only falsely by claiming to be part Native American. In point of fact, it appears that Professor Warren IS part Native American, but it is not at all evident that any affirmative action has ever been applied to her academic career, from admittance as a student to being hired as a professor. It was not even noted on many of her applications. While sometimes affirmative action has benefited a wider range of more diverse students getting admittance to academic institutions, including the most rigorous ones, it is NOT true that any of those students are given special preference in performance in those colleges and universities.

It has long been one of the great right wing myths that President Obama got into Harvard Law through affirmative action. It is equally a myth, promoted by the likes of the idiot Rush Limbaugh, who couldn't hack the education requirements of even a mediocre college, that our President somehow did not do the academic work.

The reality is that he had to have performed at an honors level to qualify for the Harvard Law Review, and if he had not been up to standard on those requirements, you can bet that his competition for Law Review Editor would have made something of it so as to prevent his election to that position.

Literally, the Obamas have been called 'uppity', a claim that they have stepped out of their proper inferior and subservient proper place, like this audio clip from the pompous jumbo jackass Rush Limbaugh:

Other examples of right wingers applying a double standard of factually inaccurate criticism that promotes the notion that white people are victimized by black people - unless they're both Republican and a minority (and sometimes, even in those people, but more discretely) were these examples noted by the Atlantic Wire almost a year ago:
A lot of people have no idea that the word "uppity," when applied to
black people, has racist connotations, but it's getting harder and
harder to understand how public figures, in particular, are able to
maintain their ignorance of the term's history. President Obama has been
a well-known public figure for several years and his conservative
critics, in particular, keep making the "uppity" mistake. This week it's
Rush Limbaugh, who said Michelle Obama was booed at a weekend Nascar race because she showed "uppity-ism," as well as the conservative site Newsbusters, which is just shocked that anyone might call that comment racially problematic. Glenn Beck,
too, is defending Limbaugh's analysis, saying it's just a synonym for
snobby. It's hard to explain how they've managed to avoid finding out
about "uppity" secret past.

Limbaugh said Monday "Nascar people... are mature, tolerant people who
fully understand when they’re being insulted and condescended to,"
Limbaugh said, then listed Obama's transgressions such as taking
expensive vacations and saying exercise is good. He continued, "They
understand it is a little bit of uppity-ism." Glenn Beck defended
the comment, saying on Imus' radio show, "Uppity? You don't think she's
a little snotty? Really? Really? Miss Arugula? Come on!" (Arugula is
a type of lettuce that is offensive to some conservatives.) "I'm not
going to apologize for saying the woman who says 'I'd like a good steak
and arugula once in a while'... Please. We're living in a country where
you can't say that's a little uppity?"

Beck seemed unaware "uppity" was a term racist southerners used for
black people who didn't know their place. In fairness, a lot of people
don't know for sure whether "uppity" is racist. Various forms of the
question "Is uppity racist?" is a verypopular on Yahoo Answers. But a little more digging could help these guys out. The most liked and most disliked definition at Urban Dictionary
notes that "uppity" is often followed by the n-word. Maybe these media
guys don't know how to Google. Even so, they've had a lot of practice
with uppity in recent years.

In 2008, Rep. Lynn Westmorland claimed
he didn't know "uppity" had racial connotations when he used the term
to describe then-Sen. Barack Obama. This is especially curious because
Westmorland is from Georgia. In 2010, Harvard professor Charles Ogletree said Sarah Palin's habit of deriding Obama as a "professor" was code for "uppity." Limbaugh responded by
saying the term was racist when applied to Clarence Thomas, but true
when applied to Obama: "Obama is uppity, but not as a black. He is an
elitist. He does think he’s smarter and better than everybody else.
That’s what he was taught. He’s a Harvard man." (Thomas received his law
degree, by contrast, from plebian institution Yale.)

Yes, how dare a black man or woman attend Harvard? How dare poor people, who already pay a disproportionate amount of taxes at all levels NOT pay income tax so the rich can have even larger tax cuts - or be susceptible to the bribes of Mitt Romney with tax policy?

How dare an extremely accomplished woman like Elizabeth Warren become a Harvard Law School professor or be recognized by the National Law Journal as one of their top 100 most influential and intelligent legal minds, unless it was through victimizing rich white people through that terrible affirmative action that equalizes the playing field. She's a triple threat; she comes from modest means if not poverty, she is a woman, AND part Native American. Professor Warren shouldn't be uppity, running successfully against incumbent Scott Brown; she should know her proper subservient, submissive female place, instead of trying to take away the position of Senator from rich, white, conservative male Scott Brown!

Oh WOE, that poor conservative privileged VICTIM!

Conservatives like to whine on and on and on and on about the importance of merit, but what they really want is preferential treatment for white people, especially rich white male people. They have immersed themselves in an ideology where they see themselves as victimized by nearly everyone except those they narrowly define as 'us', in the "them versus us" dichotomy.

I am sick of the whiny and ignorant conservatives who fail to know fact from fiction, and who want hand outs for being privileged. They don't want a meritocracy, and they don't want a nation where people are equal -- they fear equality, they fear honest competition. Mostly they just fear everything, but especially that. To hell with their paranoia, their delusions that reject facts and objective reality, and most of all to hell with their unwarranted claims of being victimized.

They could use a (metaphorical) good swift kick in the pants and to have their nose rubbed in objective reality and facts about who is benefiting from what in our country. It isn't who conservatives think it is, and it is high time those who are in the 47% that don't pay income taxes woke up, smelled the coffee, and stopped voting against their own interests. I'm beyond any patience with right wing stupidity and intellectual dishonesty. Hey! Conservatives - yeah, YOU. You have freedom of speech and the freedom to vote - USE BOTH BETTER.

Turning up the heat on right wing lies

Opinions

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

― Isaac Asimov, "A Cult of Ignorance," Newsweek (Jan. 1980)

We stand with PP

past wisdom

"I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it."Billy Graham - Parade (1 February 1981)

An astute observation from Bertrand Russell

"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."

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